Shops deliberately short changing

[ThisLittleKitty]

Anyone else feel like shops try to do this on purpose sometimes? It's happened way too frequently for my liking. Just now I was in the shop I bought 3 drinks and a packet of crisps. I handed the woman £10 and she gave me back a couple of pound coins. I told her I gave her £10 she said are you sure, this went on for a few minutes, eventually I tell her to check the cameras which she does and there it is £10. Aibu in thinking sometimes they do it on purpose hoping you don't notice?!

Well actually I'm happy with my thread title but thanks! As it's happened in a few shops and if you read I've stated it seems to happen very often so wanted to know if it happens to other people and turns out a few people have spoken of shops that have deliberately short changed them.

I stopped going to our local fish and chip shop because they seem to always make this “mistake” with me. They don’t argue when I’ve pointed out they short changed me which makes me suspect they do it as a matter of course and hope people don’t notice. They’ll eventually drive everyone away.

On the opposite end, when I used to work as cashier, you'd very often get CF customers trying to pull a fast one by saying "Oh I gave you a £20, when they had only given a £10" .. always left very red faced when the till was pulled and a halfway banking was done and it balanced. Luckily I never worked (long) in a place where if your till was down you had to put back.

I've also had cashiers give too much change, and always tell them as if they do have to pay back it's not fair. Would you do that OP?

Has anyone else heard that probably apocryphal story of a resident of Grantham being asked for his recollections of Margaret Thatcher’s dad’s grocery shop?
He is supposed to have said that Muriel was alright, but that Margaret always had her hand on the scales!

Yes bigger shops would be very difficult to do this.

I had a have a manager issue refunds, there were security camera's above the tills, and if we were £10 up or down in the till, we were sanctioned. We was also told off if we needed to cancel more than £10 of items (such as double scanning or customer changed their mind).

It was very nerve wracking sometimes

Own corner shops obviously don't have this type of security

yes it does work both ways, I once had a customer swear that she had given me a £20 note and call me a liar & a thief - when I opened the till to show her we didn't have any £20 notes she looked a bit of an idiot.

The moral is if you are going to try this trick in a shop don't do it 5 minutes after the shop opens and all they have in the till is coins

What about the dodgy customers who hand over the fake notes..... trying it on

Are you one of them?

It's happened to me too at a food outlet at Bicester. Gave over £20 and received change from £10 and then queried it and asked for a receipt. A quick view of the cameras showed it was me that was in the right and I was given the correct change without an apology. However my teenager went and bought a drink from the same outlet to go with the food and it happened to him. Again we queried it and were eventually given the correct change.

We concluded that as we were the only natural English speakers in the food outlet at the time it was a general scam to take money off tourists who were unfamiliar with UK money, coins and notes.

Works both ways. Early morning in a village shop. Local scrote lad (first customer of the day) claims he gave me a £20 for some fags. Was adamant. So was I. Was delighted to open till and show him there wasn't even a £20 note in there.

£2 change from £10 for 3 drinks and a packet of crisps sounds about right round here

People make mistakes you know, not everyone is ganging up against you for a couple of quid profit

Some customers are shameless. Shoplifting, ticket switching, leaving their old coat on a hanger and taking one we've got out for sale, deliberately bamboozling the disabled volunteer on the till to distract her to swipe stuff of the shelves....

There's a scam that I got caught by years ago, one customer pays with a £20, the next one with a £10. Second customer gets change and insists they gave a £20: "Check your till, I know it had a mark on one corner". Sure enough the £20 on top is marked, but it was the previous customer, working in cahoots, who used it.
Next time someone tried that one, I told them the till would be checked at closing time, and asked for their contact details, upon which they left quite quickly.

My corner shop is known for this. I always use my card now, unless it's under five pounds. Then, if I have the cash I'll buy it and mostly if I've run out of cash I go without.

We're busy, we are fallible. It happens. It's never deliberate (the till has to balance or Questions Are Asked). Shopworkers are only human too, (and we're overworked and NMW). Have you never made a mistake at work?

Best thing is to make sure your note is visible when you hand it over. Then, if you complain, others in the queue or on the till can back you up. We wouldn't have time to go over the CCTV, if there's a big complaint we have to shut down the till and balance it up. I had a customer tell me she'd given me a twenty when I KNEW she'd given me a ten, so, for goodwill I gave her the rest of the change. She came back in the next day to return it -she found the twenty in the back of her purse!

There's also a scam where a customer will ask for change then mess you about swapping this and that so that the cashier ends up bamboozled and the store out of pocket

Oh yeah, I remember being bamboozled with that scam 20 years ago. They were so quick...I still can't believe they got me.

Having worked in retail for most of my working life, I can assure you that customers are far dodgier than most staff.

I'm not saying I doesn't happen the other way. 3 drinks and packet of crisps did not come to £8 where do you live exactly? It was one 500ml bottle, 2 cartons of juice (small ones with the straws) and a small packet of monster munch.

I think some people on this anonymous forum may have taken the generalisation personally OP

Plenty of scams still out there

These bloody 'customers'.... dodgy buggers!

Cash swap scam on our new weekend girl, only 16 bless her. Rocked her confidence really badly

New lady on till, single mum first job in years. Confidence smashed to pieces by scamming fake vouchers

Pushchairs and Prams full of 'forgotten' items.... that's just the ones we know about, god knows how much stuff goes undetected

Returning items.....bought item day before and paid cash. Comes back in next day and brings item to till for a refund..... didn't have it on the way in ( so just picked up identical item off shelf for full refund whilst original item is at home still) nice one!! Discovery of that little scam resulted in a very upset checkout operator who had to go home early

Nasty scamming 'customers'

So it's my fault she short changed me as my note wasn't visible enough?! Don't be ridiculous, maybe she should look carefully at what notes she is taking off people! I doubt any customers are going to paying attention to what notes I'm hanging over.

That has been my experience, cocopops88.

Considering workers get disciplined for till shortages and sometimes are expected to pay for it themselves, I wouldn't be surprised if a worker who realised they'd been scammed earlier decides to scam another customer to make the till balance.

Straws and sugary crap..., maybe we should judge you op?

Judge away lol couldn't care less.

Well, that's hit a nerve.